Be Careful — The Soap You Use to Clean Your Child May Lead to a Positive Marijuana Test

Most people are aware by now that there are some everyday health and hygiene products on the market that can cause a positive result on a drug screen in adults — but in newborns?

It looks that way — a new study suggests that more newborns might be testing positive for marijuana because of the types of soap and shampoo that are used to clean them.

Newborn drug screens are commonplace in hospitals these days, especially among babies from women that are considered high risk for drug abuse. Yet, when researchers from the University of North Carolina began noticing a large percentage of newborns in their nursery testing positive for marijuana, they dug a little deeper into the issue.

What they found was that when a small amount of particular baby soaps by manufactures like Johnson & Johnson, Aveeno, and CVS were put in a urine sample it yielded a positive result for marijuana.

Of course, this isn’t good considering when a newborn tests positive for any drug it often leads to an investigation by welfare authorities, which can spell a lot of unnecessary trouble for new parents.

While it is not known why certain chemicals in these products interfere with a drug screen, researchers suggest that any hygiene product containing polyquaternium-11 and cocamidopropyl betaine can cause a positive test result for marijuana.

Researchers say that these results are likely caused by small amounts of the products washing off the babies skin and into their urine samples. However, they are not intoxicating, and they do not cause symptoms of marijuana exposed in children – they just muddle test results.